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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never any break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to